Dublin and Cork City were designated as Rent Pressure Zones before Christmas.

The Orders take effect tomorrow, 27 January 2017.

Speaking today Minister Coveney said “in making these designations today, I am delivering on the commitment I gave when I published the rental strategy on 13 December.

At that time the only areas that met the qualifying criteria were Dublin and Cork. I indicated though that I would work with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) to ensure that more refined data was available to allow for more specific targeting of the measure to other areas of the country where severe pressures were being experienced.

We have made very significant progress in a short space of time to have this new system in place and to ensure that we can properly target this intervention towards those areas facing the most severe pressures. Over the medium term though, additional supply is the right way to address rental pressures.

We need now to ensure that the supply side response is strong and swift by implementing the full range of complementary supply measures contained in the rental strategy”.

Minister Coveney is signing the Orders today on foot of recommendations from the Residential Tenancies Board that found that the criteria for designation as RPZs had been met in 12 local electoral areas in Kildare, Meath, Wicklow, Galway City and Cork County.

The Minister had asked the RTB to assess a list of areas submitted to him by the Housing Agency for possible designation. In consultation with local authorities, the Housing Agency looked at rental markets around the country to identify whether – on a preliminary view – other electoral areas outside of Dublin and Cork City should be considered for designation as rent pressure zones. They used data from the RTB and from commercial residential property letting websites for this first analysis. On the basis of this analysis, the Housing Agency recommended that a number of local electoral areas should be formally considered for designation by the RTB.

The Housing Agency submitted its list of areas for consideration earlier this week to Minister Coveney. The Minister then formally requested a rent zone report from the Director of the RTB.